


Reset

by VolxdoSioda



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, spoilers for the whole game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21771277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: Sam wakes up to cold, wet earth under his cheek, Timefall pelting him from above, and the sight of his bike tumbling off a cliff.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 118





	Reset

Sam wakes up to cold, wet earth under his cheek, Timefall pelting him from above, and the sight of his bike tumbling off a cliff. Except unlike the first time, he’s fast, and despite the shock, he’s learned to adapt, to move on sudden changes. He manages to grab the back of the bike and haul it up and back right before it goes over. His cargo, meant for Central Knot, is still scattered around him, but he knows where to look.

He also knows that something has gone wrong. A reset button hit, perhaps, when he’d confronted Amelie on the Beach. When he’d promised to stop her, and she’d smiled, and her eyes had bled, and the world has erupted in a burning, purging light. He doesn’t know whether this is an actual reset, made by her - made by the EE, to grant them a little more time to adapt, or whether this is the Beyond now, and they’ve passed over into true death, where it’s just pretending to be life.

Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe some greater being than even the EE is looking down on them, and chose pity. Chose the human race to be the ones to get it right. Maybe not the first time, but the second - and if Sam is doing this, he is going to make damned sure they get it right. Especially now that he knows the truth.

He takes his bike and the few scattered pieces of cargo he can find to the cave. He remembers meeting Fragile here, remembers his skin breaking out in a rash that ran cheek to ankle as the BTs had come out of hiding. They’d known _something _was around, in that primitive hunting sense of theirs, but neither he nor Fragile had been pinpointed and caught.

It reminds him that he doesn’t have the gift of hematic grenades, or hematic bullets yet. He still has his blood, so he’s not without a weapon if push comes to shove. But it shouldn’t, because Sam remembers how the BTs moved - three, one in front of the cave, one on the ceiling, and then one beside him, near the back.

He puts himself inside the cave, but this time as he strips down keeps one hand to the photo, to prevent it flying away. He puts himself further back, against the rocks he and Fragile stood against the first time, tucked close as the BTs hunted.

There’s a _pop, _and Fragile is there, wide-eyed, mouth already moving. She remembers too, he thinks grimly, and grabs her just as the first BTs come out. The sensation of touch makes his skin crawl, but he endures it.

_It isn’t weakness, _he tells himself, firmly. _You survived once, and you will survive again, Sam Porter Bridges. _

And the BTs move in the same pattern they did that first time, and both Sam and Fragile hold their breath as all three pass around them in a dizzying circle. Once they’re gone, Fragile looks at him.

“Do you—”

“Yeah.”

“Oh thank god, I thought it was just me. I thought I was going crazy.” She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, and he remembers abruptly the earlier run, how she’d smiled awkwardly and tried to offer him her hand, even as her grip had bloomed red against his forearm. “You remember, right? Please say you do.”

“I went to the Beach, to stop Amelie,” he says. “I told her I would stop her, and she… did something.”

“Us too,” Fragile agrees. “Outside, the sun came out, and everything turned red. We thought you were too late. But now—”

“Now I don’t know.”

“No. But maybe… maybe she’s given us more time.” Fragile looks up at the sky, where before five ghostly figures had floated. “Maybe you did save us, in the end. If you and I remember, whose to say they don’t remember?”

“You think Die-Hardman, Deadman, Heartman, Mama, Lockne… you think they all remember?”

“I’m hoping so. I think it would be easier.”

“Guess we’ll have to find out.” He zips back up, gathers his cargo, and then pauses as he thinks of something. “Central Knot. Higgs.”

“What?”

“Higgs caused Central Knot’s voidout the first time. You think if we remember, he does too?”

“Assuming this is real and not some kind of fucked-up end-of-life thing? Then yeah, probably.”

“Fuck.”

“Sounds about right. Gather your things, and I’ll take you into town. Then I’m going to see if I can find Higgs.”

“Thanks Fragile.”

x-x-x-x-x-x

His theory is proven to be correct as soon as he steps into Central Knot and delivers the cargo. Mama appears to him as a hologram, like before, but the first words out of her mouth are, “What did you _do?!”_

“I don’t know,” Sam answers, and knows the answer isn’t the one she wants to hear. “I’m sorry Mama. I promise I’ll try to get to you and her as soon as I can, and take you to Lockne.”

“Don’t bother, Lockne’s already on her way to me. Deadman and Heartman have both already contacted me, and Die-Hardman’s talking to Bridget as we speak. We all remember, Sam.”

“Well, that’s good. Bridget say anything?”

“Not yet. But she remembers too, best we can figure out. Or already knows? Uh, it’s confusing. But yeah. And you remember—”

“Fragile’s on her way to stop him,” Sam answers. “If she can find him.”

“Good luck to her then. In the meantime, the— oh fuck.”

“What?”

“Your BB. Uh, Lou? She’s coming to you now.”

_Fuck. _Too late, he remembers how he got her, and feels his stomach twist. Higgs started the voidout in Central Knot, but without him Igor would still have Lou.

_But Victor would still have Igor. _

“Wait— Deadman’s got an idea. Hold tight, Sam.”

“Uh, sure?” He can’t though, because the hologram of Mama vanishes, and the yellow vehicle carrying Corpse Disposal is riding towards him, the corpse of a suicide victim riding in the back. Even the sight of it is enough to make gooseflesh break out across his skin.

Still. He did this once, and from what he’s heard, the whole team remembers. Maybe this time will be different. Maybe it’s not just Lou he can save, but Igor as well. Hell, maybe even Higgs is tired enough not to try his bullshit a second time. Or at the very least, maybe Fragile can distract him long enough for them to reach the incinerator.

_Grit your teeth, bear your load, and go, _he tells himself, and shakes Igor’s hand once, and then twice, accepting the assignment.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

In the end, it isn’t Sam that saves them. It’s Higgs.

Higgs, who between one moment and the next is in the vehicle besides him and Igor, riding across wet, BT-infested ground, as Igor’s Odradek goes mad, spinning orange furiously as it points back and forth between six different spots. Then it locks onto Higgs, and Sam doesn’t think, he just _moves. _He launches himself at Higgs as Igor gasps, pins him up against the back of the vehicle, fury moving through him. He’s ready to kill Higgs, if that’s what it takes. They’re so close his nose is brushing the golden mask.

But all Higgs does is raise a hand, and then a finger between their lips in the mimicry of an order. Through the gaps in the mask, his eyes meet Sam’s. “My, my, my,” Higgs breathes, and there’s something like _respect _in that drawl, “You certainly know how to go out in style, don’t you Sam Porter?”

“Try it,” Sam hisses. “I’ll break your fucking neck.”

“Now now. I’m here as the safeguard. See?” He turns his head just slightly, and points out. Sam can hear the BTs, hear the whispers and screams of rage as their truck rumbles through the area loudly. “I’m stopping them, Sam Porter Bridges. They don’t bite the hand that feeds.”

Sam stares at him, but those eyes don’t change. Sam works the muscles in his jaw, and nods. “You still on her side?”

“Hardly.” Something shifts, a sense of sneering displeasure coming out. “I’m my own man. I played my part - as far as I’m concerned, our contract is over. Now, are you going to be a good boy and shift back so I can help you stop the Timefall from turning us into a messy puddle?”

Sam doesn’t want to trust Higgs. But he remembers the journal entries, the photos of himself in a tiny bunker, the words that don’t make sense, and yet made _too much _sense. He shifts back, giving ground, and Higgs shifts forward, reaching out. Kneels over the feet of the body, uses his cloak to its full size to keep the lower half covered, and reaches out. laying hands on Sam’s shoulders, and bowing his head.

Sam shifts over the rest, arms reaching out the same way to Higgs’ shoulders, brings them temple-to-temple to cover the upper half of the body, while Igor scurries to the side the rain is pelting them from. The rapid decay slows, and Sam breathes in the smell of sulfar and rot and Higgs, earthen and spicy in a way he never would have expected. It’s almost soothing, in a fever-dream way.

“You’ll have time, Sam Porter Bridges,” Higgs murmurs to him, and the roar of the rain prevents Igor hearing. “That much, I can promise you.”

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

They make it. Barely.

Without Higgs, it wouldn’t have happened. But with three they’re able to keep the body just above the line, and Higgs doesn’t wait until they stop moving. He grabs hold, and teleports, and Sam watches, breathless, as black smoke begins to emerge from the incinerator’s tower. Higgs doesn’t come back out, and Igor doesn’t wait for him to.

“Well,” Igor says, as they drive back. “That was certainly ah, something. Are… you an old friend of his, or something?”

“Or something,” Sam replies. He wonders what happened with Fragile, if Higgs was like that. Or if she ever even saw him in the first place.

They make it back, and there, Deadman is waiting.

“Igor, the order came through. I’m sorry.”

Igor pauses, and then nods. He unhooks the BB - Lou - from himself, and says, “It was a good run. I’m just sorry for it, y’know?”

“Sam, this is your next assignment.”

Igor hands Lou over, and says, “I’m gonna go call my brother. Let him know what’s going on, that I make it back safe. See you around, Sam. Good luck out there.”

Deadman smiles at him as soon as Igor is gone. “I don’t know whether she remembers you, but at least you have her back now, yes?”

Sam looks down at her pod. He doesn’t have the connector yet, but he whistles anyway, soft, the song he remembers Unger whistling and singing half a dozen times. Rocks her, gently. Deadman watches, clearly eager to see, and when her pod lightens and she begins to giggle, pressing herself up againt the glass to look at him, Sam smiles.

“Guess that answers that question.”

“Good, good.” Deadman shuffles around him, and his smile falters a bit. “You’re probably going to need her in the coming days. And ah…”

“Bridget wants to see me, doesn’t she.”

“She does. At your earliest convienence, she said.”

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“Sam. You came.”

“Again.”

Die-Hardman looks the same as the last time Sam saw him, there at the end. But his eyes are shiny, and he blinks rapidly when Sam looks at him. So instead, he looks at Bridget, who sits in her hospital bed, serene.

“Did you do this?”

The EE lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “You asked for more time, Sam. So I unwound the threads, but let you keep what you know. You, and everyone else who came into contact with you. America is whole again, and they remember you. Remember what you did, or in some cases, what you will do. This is the time I can give you. There will not be another chance.”

“Are the Demens gone?”

“Higgs has taken his men and left. I can’t say whether they’re gone for good or not. The paths split - in one of them, you wouldn’t have saved that body, you know.”

He feels a shiver run down his spine. “Yeah. I imagine.”

Bridget watches him with too-knowing eyes. “Bridges hereby enters into a contract with Sam Porter Bridges,” she says softly. “You know what to do.”

She dies quietly this time, no gasping, no flailing. Just there one minute, gone the next. Die-Hardman doesn’t wait for it to be called before he approaches Sam.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Has to be done.”

“No, Sam. Not about that.” Die-Hardman takes in a deep, shaky breath. “Do you know about Captain Clifford Unger?”

“I know you and he served together.”

Die-Hardman laughs, but there’s nothing humorous in it. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice cracks, as he hastily ushers Sam away. “But there’s more to it. And this time, I’m gonna tell you.”

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Which is how Sam learns about his father. That he has one, and Cliff apparently hasn’t stopped hunting for him.

That Cliff knows that _Sam _is his.

“Man’s always had an uncanny sense for this sorta thing,” Hardman tells him wetly, after crying his eyes out. They’re in a private office, Sam numbly sitting by the window, newly fitted with both cufflinks and the blue porter’s outfit. Lou peers up at him, worried that he’s so quiet. “I can’t say whether he knew from the beginning, but I think he always suspected. He wants _you, _Sam. Not your BB - not Lou. And this time, I think if you go to him, he’ll listen.”

It’s not the biggest revelation - no, that comes later, when Sam fits the pieces together, and realizes that _he _is the reason the Death Stranding occurred. That the incision marks on his body that he’s had since he was young - that by reviving him, the balance was shifted. The lines crossed. Granted, the Death Stranding would have occurred one way or another, but here, the reason is him.

It only makes Sam more determined to get this right. To stop the EE this time, and keep humanity going. He has to. He will.

“We’ve already got Heartman working on the hematic weapons, Mama and Lockne working on the Q-pid’s functionality and limitor, and Deadman working on your BB. All of them should be ready shortly. And in the meantime, we’ll have you do what you do best.” Hardman wipes his face, puts his mask back on, and in a matter of moments is right back to being as stone-cold as he always seems to be. “Connecting people.”

“Fragile ever radio in?” Sam asks.

“Once. Only to tell us she had no luck finding Higgs. Why?”

Sam shakes his head. “Higgs found us, that’s why. He stopped the BTs. Helped us stop the body going necro.”

“He did?” Hardman’s evidently surprised. Sam can’t really blame him. It’s difficult to believe it wasn’t just a dream. “Perhaps he’s learned a lesson, then. I can’t say it wouldn’t be nice to have the resources he carries on board. Even after all the trouble he’s caused.”

“_You’ll have time, Sam Porter Bridges. That much, I can promise you.”_

“Yeah, maybe.” He tries not to think on how it felt, having Higgs as an ally, even for those brief moments. Higgs has gone turncoat before, lured in by Amelie’s power. There’s nothing to say he won’t change his tune when it suits him.

“For now though, gets some rest. You’ve earned it.”

_We’ll see, _Sam thinks. Nevertheless, he returns to the private room. For now at least, there’s space to breathe. Central Knot is still there, Higgs is quiet for the moment, and it’ll take time for them to get the blueprints for all his old equipment back up and running.

He rewards himself with a nap, and when he wakes several hours later, Lou is back in her spot next to his weapons and uniform, and there’s an email from Igor.

It’s as good a starting spot as any.

"Now get it done, Sam Porter Bridges," Sam orders softly, and in her capsule Lou giggles.


End file.
